Parliament is in the middle of a second reading of a bill that would, among other things, grant the relevant Minister the ability to grant citizenship through naturalisation of foreign nationals residing in Malta who are experts in their respective fields.

This is seen the world over, most notably in sports, particularly in football, where national teams are filled with individuals clearly not from the country they are representing, but who would have been granted citizenship.

Parliamentary Secretary Julia Farrugia first described the clause that would allow an individual that has excelled in whichever field they are working in to be granted citizenship.

The clause forms part of a wider range of amendments to the Maltese Citizenship Act.

Outgoing deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami said the proposed law was very positive in view of the ‘brain-drain’ Malta has experienced where the most talented people choose to find success abroad should be reversed.

He declared that the Opposition will be voting in favour, adding that Malta must adapt to the overseas situation where many countries use, so to speak, foreign nationals who are given citizenship and represent their new country. He said that four per cent of athletes at the Sochi Olympic games were foreign nationals granted citizenship in the country they are representing.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said that this law is essential to boost the scientific, sports and arts sector. Muscat stressed he was not saying that the Maltese cannot excel in these fields on their own, but that a ‘critical mass’ of people needs to be reached in a particular field in order to bring out talents and get people to excel even further.

He said to do this from the local pool alone is statistically difficult due to Malta’s small size, but the incentivised citizenship could make talented people who are excellent in their field to come to Malta, instead of Japan, the UK or the USA.

Muscat said that there have been several cases where world class artists are in Malta, and the only way to keep them here and collaborate with our people is through laws like this, that would provide them with citizenship.

He said that the most important selling point for this proposed law was in the sports sector.

“In the long term, this could allow our national sports teams to reach international games.”

PN Whip David Agius remarked his pleasure that on this law both the PN and the PL are in agreement.